Julie Allen
Greetings from Hawaii! I am here on vacation for 2 months, so I finally have time to write to you and give you my thoughts on our trip. Our first guide, Luu was very knowledgeable and enthusiastic and our driver was great. My only complaint was that it was difficult for us to understand his English, and he went in to too much detail at the Museum of Ethnology. Also, he gave me a survey to fill out at the last minute while we were in line to check in for our flight at the airport, making it difficult for me give a full review.
We really enjoyed the Meracus Hotel in Hanoi. It was in a great location, very clean, and the staff could not have been nicer. We really enjoyed our nighttime food tour, and loved going to the Clam Hut. That was a highlight for us and the food was great. We had fun at the home stay, our hosts were very sweet, but I have to admit that it was not very clean (especially the bathroom).
Halong Bay was wonderful, the boat was very nice, the food was great. We really liked everything there.
Our guide in Hue was much easier to understand and was also very knowledgeable. Our driver in Hue was not quite as conscientious, showing up late a couple of times. We enjoyed all of the tours in Hue and Hoi An. The Serene Palace in Hue was very nice and the food very good. We really loved Hoi An and found the Thanh Binh Riverside Hotel to be exceptional. When I requested a room change due to noise, the staff was kind enough to accommodate me. They were very friendly and service-oriented and the hotel itself was very nice. Our driver in Hoi An and Danang was very good.
Our hotel in Danang, the Holiday Beach Hotel, was great. We were given beautiful rooms, free massages and free beers at the rooftop bar. The manager was very friendly and was happy to make our stay as comfortable as possible.
Our last guide in Vietnam, Lee, was really great. He was enthusiastic, informative, and we had a lot of fun with him. All of our tours with him, especially the Cu Chi Tunnels, were very interesting. As you know, the Little Saigon Corner Boutique Hotel was horrible - dirty and dreary and old. The Blue Diamond Hotel was much better, but not great. It was clean, but there were many smokers in non-smoking rooms, the hallways could use a new coat of paint, and the breakfast was not good. Items that should have been hot were stone cold. It was in a great location, however. Our driver, Kenth, was excellent.
We loved our stay in Chau Doc at Victoria Nui Sam Lodge. The view was spectacular, and the hotel was great. It was the perfect place to relax in the middle of a very busy vacation.
The speedboat to Cambodia was not great, but I assume it is the best way to get there. Our guide for the day in Phnom Penh, Chessla, was very good and easy to understand. Our hotel, Anise Hotel, was good. It was older, but the rooms were clean and the restaurant/lobby area was very nice. The food was also very good there.
Our last guide, Tola, was great. Easy to understand, very well-informed, and an excellent photographer who was very willing to assist us in getting the best pictures possible. We found the trip out to the floating village really interesting, but the trash lining the road to get there was overwhelming. We loved the bamboo train and our visit to Bayon. We also loved the Battambang Resort. Beautiful setting, delicious food, wonderful owners.
Our time in Siem Reap was well-spent. Tola and our great driver, Cheat, took us to everything worth seeing, with interesting explanations of the history of the Angkor area. I really feel that they were very thorough and that we did not miss a thing. Tola also suggested some changes to our schedule so that we would avoid the crowds and get the best pictures.
Our hotel, Centre Boutique Angkor Hotel, was in a great location. The rooms were fine, the grounds were very nice, and the food was good.
We had a great trip with very few problems, which is a compliment to your planning and organizational skills. I was glad we had a chance to meet you, and I will be sure to recommend your services to anyone who might be interested in travelling to your part of the world.
Lindsey
We were very happy with everything and in particular the choices of the guides.
- Nha Trang: All good, hotel very good
- Travel to Nha Trang: good idea to do it in bus and very good explanations
- Nha Trang visits: very nice- Reception in HCMC: All ok
- Sofitel: Good, but in our opinion there was better for the same price
- Flight to Da Lat: All Good
- Da Lat: liked a lot the hotel
All in all, a really good experience, we will repeat!
Matt
What an amazing trip. We really enjoyed that every place was so different and we did a different activity in each place. We loved Halong Bay, the boat was beautiful. We loved zipping around the countryside on motorbikes. Loved the chaos of Saigon! Had great fun at the cooking class and had a massage thrown in which was lovely. The temples of Siem Reap were incredible and it was great to have a guide tell us all about them as there are things we would have missed if we just saw them by ourselves.
Our guides in Vietnam, Lam & Vuong were AMAZING, they went above and beyond the call of duty to make sure we had a fantastic experience. I am sure they stayed with us long after they had to each day. Our guides in Cambodia were great too. They were very informative and very nice people.
I met a lady at the airport when I was flying to Melbourne and she told me her and her friend were planning to go to Cambodia in July this year so I gave her your details and told them how FABULOUS you were.
Thanks again Asia Trip Deals, it was absolutely lovely dealing with you guys
Derek
We had the most amazing trip to Cambodia. Thank you so much for planning it for us. We thoroughly enjoyed everything we did and saw some amazing places.
In Siem Reap:
-Kettya was an absolutely amazing tour guide and Mr. Hok, our driver, was also very good. I have nothing but good things to say about them and would recommend either of them to anyone. Our hotel was also fantastic, comfortable and clean and the staff was very friendly. Our 2nd day in Siem Reap was pretty intense, we spent about 8 hours straight looking at temples and it got to be a little much. I think it would have been a little better if we had spent just a half day looking at temples and then something else in the evening. Also, the temples are incredible but they do get a little repetitive pretty fast.
- The stilt village and eating lunch with the family there was amazing and definitely one of our favorite days
Battambang:
- Again the hotel was great and we would definitely recommend it.
- The bamboo train was also one of our favorites.
Phnom Penh:
- the bus to Phnom Penh was good and it was also good that we got booked to have the front seats since I sometimes have issues with motion sickness so thanks for that :)
-Our first tour guide Soc (the younger boy) was good, informative and funny.
- The sunset cruise was awesome :)
- Our hotel in Phnom Penh was fine. The room was fine and the laundry service that was included was nice but the hotel owner was pretty rude. He seemed very irritated anytime we (or our tour guide) would talk to him about anything. The staff that was around while he was working also seemed pretty miserable especially compared to how happy everyone else outside the hotel seemed to be. Soc arranged for us to have a place to rinse off the day we checked out before our flight which I assumed would be a room. It ended up just being a shower in the massage area. There was hardly any place for us to change or do hair and makeup and I had to wander around to find a decent bathroom as well. Overall, that part was not what we were expecting and I feel as if they did not deliver what they said they would to us. In general I probably would not recommend this hotel to someone else just because of the owner and the service (the rooms were fine).
